Europe Victorious in 2018 Ryder Cup

Mark Soltau

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – Like it has since 1993, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team left Europe empty-handed.

After jumping out to a commanding 10-6 lead through two days, the Europeans cruised to victory on Sunday in the 42nd edition at Le Golf National outside Paris, winning the singles competition, 7-4-1. The final: Europe 17.5, U.S. 10.5.

Europe has now won nine of the last 12 meetings.

Tiger Woods, coming off his 80th career victory last week at the Tour Championship and first in five years, lost to Jon Rahm, 2 & 1, and went 0-4 on the week.

“It’s disappointing because that’s four points to the European Team,” said Woods. “It’s not a lot of fun. “It’s frustrating because when we came here, I thought we were all playing pretty well, and I just didn’t perform at the level I had been playing, and I just got behind early in the matches and never got back.”

Woods ran into buzz-saws most of the week. In singles, Rahm birdied the first hole to go 1-up and led 2-up after eight holes. Woods hit a great second shot to the par-5 ninth and won the hole with an eagle, then evened the match with a birdie at No. 11. But he bogeyed 13 and 14 to lose both holes and never recovered.

After playing seven of the last nine weeks, the 42-year-old Woods admitted he was gassed.

“It’s been a lot of golf for a short period of time,” Woods said.

Even with the great year he had, it was not the way Woods wanted to end it. Although it marked his eighth Ryder Cup appearance, he hadn’t competed since 2012.

“It doesn’t feel very good because I didn’t help my teammates win any points,” said Woods. “At the end of the day, we came here as a team and we win or lose, and unfortunately we lost this one.”